ly by the uneasy Cardinal. The very
fact that she was the admirable cause thereof, embittered his Eminence's
soul, and his spleen was mightily enlarged by the creatures who pandered
to his vicious ill-nature. The fascination of the Goddess engendered
detestation as love was turned once more to hate in the crucible of his
passions.

"She is nothing but a strumpet, and without a drop of royal blood," so
he reasoned, and so he spoke; and he backed up his aphorism by conniving
at the foul report in 1582, which accused "Bianca Buonaventuri"--as he
always styled her--of causing poison to be administered to poor little
Filippo--Giovanna's puny, sickly child! He even had the audacity to
accuse Francesco of complicity, because he had ordered no elaborate
court mourning, conveniently ignoring the fact that a gracious
compliment was paid to Spanish custom and court etiquette, by the
simplicity of the obsequies.

Plotters of other men's wrongs were ever inconsistent! One would have
thought that Ferdinando would have hailed the removal of the only
legitimate heir, before himself, to the Grand Duchy, but the delirium of
jealousy and the fury of animosity in the Cardinal's evil heart, found a
sort of culmination two years later. Bianca's daughter, Pellegrina, the
only offspring of Pietro Buonaventuri, gave birth to a child. She had
married, shortly after the public nuptials of the Grand Duke and Grand
Duchess, Count Ulisse Bentivoglio di Magiola of Bologna--a by no means
happy marriage as it turned out. This child, a boy, their
first-born--indeed poor, pretty Pellegrina's love-child--the Cardinal
affirmed "Bianca Buonaventuri" had tried to pass off as her
own--another subterfuge confirmative of the first, and that his brother
was conversant with the intrigue!

The Grand Duke met the gossip with impassive silence--the wisest thing
he could have done--and the Grand Duchess laid herself out to make
Cardinal Ferdinando utterly ashamed of himself and his foul aspersions.
The integrity of her conduct, and Francesco's sapient conduct of the
Government were the admiration of all Italy.

So struck was the Pope with the peace and happiness of the Medicean
rule, and the personal characteristics of "the good wife and beneficent
consort," as he styled her, that he bestowed upon the Grand Duchess the
rare distinction of the "Golden Rose"! At first his Holiness desired the
Cardinal de' Medici to head the special mission as Legate, and talked
se